Beast
by Tequesta
Summary: It eats away at you, a little bit at a time. Mac POV, rated T just in case.


"Do you believe in God?"

"This isn't about me. This is about you," I tell the man. He's sitting across the table from me, his wrists shackled in front of him, Flack standing in the corner. Just in case.

Just in case Jacob Daniels decides he wants to kill another cop.

He killed an officer three days ago, in an interrogation similar to this, someone barely a year out of the Academy. No one else, funnily enough, was willing to come and interview him after that.

"That's what they all say. Even when I was arrested fifteen years ago. Do they teach you that in the Academy, detective? Interrogation 101?" Daniels asked. He's trying to get the upper hand here. I'm determined not to let him do that.

"Why did you kill Officer Richmond?" I ask. Straight to the point.

"If I remember rightly, you get the death penalty for that," Daniels replies coolly, gazing at his fingernails.

"They haven't used the death penalty in the state of New York since 1963. So you're out of luck," I reply.

Daniels just shakes his head.

"Pity. I want to be put to death, for those families to experience the same thrill I did when I killed their loved ones, watching them die right in front of me," he said calmly.

God, he's a sick bastard. I try not to let my face betray these feelings.

"You killed four women. You dismembered their bodies, and threw them out with the garbage," I say, trying to elicit a response. He looks right through me, like I'm not there.

"Why should I care? They deserved it," he said. I take a picture out of the folder, slide it over to him. It's a picture of a little boy, three years old.

"What's this?" Daniels asked. He looks unsure, all of a sudden.

"The third victim, Hannah Walter, had a son. Does Thomas deserve this?" I asked. I hold up the picture in front of his face.

"I...I didn't know she was...a mother," Daniels mutters. He throws his face into his arms, his shoulders shaking as he began sobbing loudly.

And then he looked up. Smirking.

"That's what you want me to do, right, detective? Show remorse? I knew he was watching from behind the door all the time. I could hear him crying for his mommy," he sneered.

It takes every little bit, every ounce of self-control I have, not to reach over the table and choke him.

We had just started processing the scene. They had sent out an Amber Alert when it was discovered that Hannah Walter had a child. We were all fearing the worst.

Then I found him, cowering under a pile of clothes in the cupboard in his room. It took nearly two hours for Stella and I to coax him out of there.

I checked up on him every day at CPS. And every time, he would always ask:

"Where's my mommy?"

After a while, it was impossible to see that kid without feeling helpless. I didn't have the answers. I still don't.

"You want to kill me, don't you? I can see it in your eyes. Go on, I dare you," Daniels taunted.

"I wouldn't waste my time on-" I begin, but he interrupts me. A big mistake.

"What angers you more-the death of the police officer, or the fact that I've left a child motherless?" he suddenly asks, cocking his head to the side.

"Because I know you're angry. You're just like me; it's hard to keep a tight leash on your anger when it's something you care deeply about, right?" Daniels just looks at me.

And I lose control.

Standing up, I lean across the table, and grab his shirt collar, our faces barely millimetres away from each other.

Flack moves forward; a warning to be careful. I ignore it.

"I'm nothing like you," I hiss. "I would never kill an innocent person."

"You want to kill me, though," he says quietly, barely able to keep that smug grin off his face.

"You barely qualify as human, let alone innocent," I say to him. He spits in my face. I blink, and my grip tightens on his shirt. Before I can do anything, Flack leaps into action, pulling me off him.

"Mac, he's not worth it," he says, pulling on my jacket, pulling me back. I furiously wipe my face with my sleeve. My skin feels as if it's on fire.

Then I shrug Flack off of me, and storm out of the interrogation room, angry. I need to hit something, anything. So I walk into the bathroom, which, thankfully, is empty. And I punch the wall.

Unfortunately, it's all white granite tiles, which really, really hurts.

But the pain clarifies everything, as I stand there, my right hand red and throbbing. It's not as easy as it used to be. This job; it's starting to drag me down with it.

And I'm afraid that one day, I won't come back up.

**A/N:** I've always wanted to do a POV story, so here it is. Ta da. In a roundabout way, it's inspired by the S4 episode 'The Deep,' when Mac roughs up that Albanian terrorist, gets right in his face, and I wondered if he did that a lot, and if it gets to him every time he does do that. But he's a cop…so who knows?


End file.
